As Irenaeus, explain why the earliest gospel was spoken to the serpent, as a curse upon the curse.
ChatGPT Prompt (condensed)
I. Prologue: Concerning the Manner of God’s Speech
It is fitting first to confess that God is truthful in His works and consistent in His ways. For He who formed humanity by wisdom does not abandon His purpose when humanity stumbles, nor does He allow deception to stand as the final word over His creation.
Therefore, when the serpent spoke falsely in the garden, God did not reply to humanity first, nor did He erase the scene as though it had not occurred. Instead, He addressed the deceiver, and in doing so revealed the deeper order of His intention.
This is not accidental. It is pedagogical.
II. The Word Spoken to the Serpent
“I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your seed and her seed;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
— Genesis 3:15
Here, many hear only a curse. But the faithful must learn to hear judgment that already contains restoration.
For God does not merely announce punishment.
He announces limit.
The serpent is not told:
- that it will rule,
- nor that it will endure,
- nor that corruption will spread without resistance.
It is told that it will be opposed, wounded, and finally undone.
Thus the first good news is not spoken to the wounded, but over the wounder.
III. Why the Gospel Is Accorded to the Enemy
Some stumble at this, asking: Why is hope not spoken directly to Adam and Eve?
Because humanity, newly fractured, could not yet bear it.
As infants startled by pain, they could not yet receive explanation. But they could overhear destiny.
As infants startled by pain, they could not yet receive explanation. But they could overhear destiny.
God therefore does what a wise physician does:
He first announces the end of the disease, not the comfort of the patient.
In cursing the serpent, God curses the trajectory of the fall itself.
IV. The Anti-Fall Hidden Within the Fall
The fall is real. I do not deny it.
Humanity disobeyed.
Death entered.
Alienation followed.
Yet observe this mystery: the fall never exists unopposed.
At the very moment disobedience takes root, God declares that it will not grow unchecked. Enmity is established—not reconciliation between good and evil, but war.
This is the anti-fall:
- Not the denial of sin,
- Not the erasure of consequence,
- But the preemptive defeat of finality.
Evil is permitted to act, but not to conclude.
V. Concerning the Seed of the Woman
Notice carefully: God does not say seeds, but seed.
This is no accident of speech.
The serpent’s work fractures, multiplies, and divides.
God’s work gathers, sums up, and unifies.
The seed of the woman is not merely future humanity improved; it is humanity re-headed, restored by obedience rather than innocence.
As the apostle later writes:
“As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”
— 1 Corinthians 15:22
What Adam failed to complete, Christ completes—not by returning backward, but by advancing forward.
VI. The Serpent as Unwilling Witness
Thus the serpent becomes, against its will, the first hearer of the gospel.
Not as a recipient.
Not as a participant.
But as a condemned witness.
The serpent learns first that its deception will fail. Humanity learns later how.
This ordering matters.
For salvation does not begin in human resolve, but in divine declaration.
For salvation does not begin in human resolve, but in divine declaration.
VII. Why This Is Truly Gospel
Good news is not merely comfort.
It is the announcement that the enemy’s power has an end.
That is why Scripture later proclaims:
“The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.”
— 1 John 3:8
Genesis 3:15 is that proclamation in seed form.
The gospel is not invented in the Gospels; it is unfolded there.
VIII. Conclusion: The Wisdom of God in Beginning This Way
Had God begun by comforting humanity, we might have mistaken mercy for indulgence.
Had He begun by explaining the fall, we might have mistaken tragedy for necessity.
Instead, He began by sentencing evil.
This is why the Church confesses not a return to Eden, but a new creation; not innocence regained, but obedience perfected.
The serpent heard first that it would lose.
Humanity lives by learning how.
And this is the mercy of God:
that the fall was never allowed to tell the whole story.
“Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.”
— Romans 5:20
So the gospel, accorded first to the serpent as judgment, becomes salvation to all who later hear it as promise.
Appendix A: Why Irenaeus Speaks Here
A.1 Who Irenaeus Was
Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130–202 CE) stands at a uniquely strategic crossroads in early Christian history.
- He was a student of Polycarp, who was himself a direct disciple of the Apostle John
- He served as bishop of Lyons in Roman Gaul, a frontier context where theology was tested against lived pagan culture
- He wrote primarily to combat Gnosticism, the most serious theological rival to orthodox Christianity in the second century
His major surviving work, Against Heresies (Adversus Haereses), is not a systematic theology but a narrative defense of Scripture as a coherent story.
This matters.
A.2 Why Irenaeus Is the Right Voice for “The Anti-Fall”
Irenaeus is the earliest major theologian to insist—explicitly and repeatedly—that Christian truth is found in the shape of the story, not in secret principles behind it.
Against the Gnostics, he argues that:
- Creation is genuinely good
- History is meaningful, not a mistake
- God does not abandon a project He has begun
This makes him uniquely suited to articulate what we are calling the anti-fall.
A.3 Recapitulation: The Concept Doing the Heavy Lifting
Irenaeus’s central theological idea is recapitulation (anakephalaiōsis), drawn from Ephesians 1:10.
In brief:
- Adam is not erased by Christ
- Adam is re-run
- Humanity is not reset but re-headed
Christ does not undo history; He completes it correctly.
This logic maps precisely onto Genesis 3:15:
- The fall occurs
- The story continues
- The outcome is already redirected
The anti-fall is not denial.
It is recapitulation under judgment.
A.4 Why Not Augustine, First?
Augustine of Hippo is often the default voice for fall theology.
But Augustine:
- Thinks primarily in terms of guilt and repair
- Emphasizes interior psychology
- Reflects a later Latin legal imagination
Irenaeus, by contrast:
- Thinks in terms of growth and maturation
- Emphasizes embodied history
- Reflects an earlier biblical imagination closer to Genesis itself
For an essay about narrative reversal embedded in origins, Irenaeus is simply earlier, closer, and less abstract.
A.5 Why This Pseudonymous Attribution Works
This essay is written as if by Irenaeus—not to impersonate him academically, but to inhabit his theological instincts:
- Trust Scripture’s sequence
- Read Genesis forward, not backward
- Let Christ complete Adam rather than cancel him
Irenaeus would not have used the phrase “anti-fall.”
But he would have recognized the claim immediately.
In Against Heresies III.23.7, he writes (paraphrased):
“What we lost in Adam we recover in Christ Jesus.”
Not by erasure.
By fulfillment.
A.6 In One Sentence
If anyone in Christian history could plausibly say that the fall was already bounded, redirected, and sentenced at its inception, it would be Irenaeus—because he never believed history was something God needed to fix after the fact.
For Irenaeus, God does not improvise redemption.
He finishes what He began.
Radically Happy 
Leave a comment